


Ripples

by Pawthorn



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Short & Sweet, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pawthorn/pseuds/Pawthorn
Summary: When a stranger shows kindness to a small boy in Shady Creek Run, the ripples will one day travel further than she knows.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

> Lucien grew up in Shady Creek Run, so I had to write this. Those are the rules.

He doesn't remember the first time someone kicked him. Or stole bread from his grasping, desperate hands. Or simply walked past, mud from their boots splashing on him as he lay, hungry, alone, and helpless in the street.

But the first time  _ they _ approached, that he does remember.

He was slow that day, lost in a haze of hunger and numbed to the core from cold. He didn't scatter along with the other urchins when the sound of heavy, well made boots approached the gutter where he lay. Under normal circumstances, it would have been the death of him.

But not that day.

That day, a warm loaf of bread was pressed into his hands. He stared at it, past the ability to comprehend what it meant. It was more food than he had seen in a long time.

"Can you make that last a week?" A voice asked from above him. It was a voice both gentle and firm, like a fence with no briars or thorns on it that doesn't let anything past all the same.

Realising that the voice spoke to him and wanted an answer, he nodded and then looked up at the stranger. It was a long way to look, and made him rather dizzy. A cloak obscured the tall, lean figure, casting their face into shadow.

"Good," they said in response. "Do you have a safe place to take it before someone takes it from you? Although if anyone else around here wanted something to eat, my daughter has a sack-full of loaves like this in our cart by the north gate."

The sound of many running feet filled his ears as he nodded his reply. He wondered if what the stranger said was truly so. If it was, their- her?- daughter was about to be overrun by a lot of small, hungry urchins. He hoped she could handle herself.

"Will you be able to get to safety?" This stranger was uncommonly nosy. "Can you walk?

He nodded again, and heaved himself upward, carefully cradling the precious bread. The smell was starting to make his stomach cramp, somewhere between hungry and sick. He wanted to get out of sight before trying a bite, for safety's sake.

He wobbled as he stood, and the stranger reached a hand out to steady him. As they touched his shoulder, a pulse of warmth filled his body. Aches- old and new- faded, even the churning in his stomach settled. He looked up sharply, mind clearer than it had been in days. The face of a rather plain, though incredibly tall, woman stared back at him. Her eyes twinkled as she winked at him, then turned and strode away.

For a week, he had food. He hadn't had to fight quite so hard, take so many risks, or worry quite so much. And the next week, they came again, and there was another loaf of bread, warm and solid, in his hands once more.

It went on this way. Maybe not every week, but often enough, the strange tall ones would come to town for supplies, entering and leaving by the north gate. Folk in town whispered about them, claimed they were witches of the Savalirwood. Even so, no one ever troubled them. They always brought bread- sometimes even cheese or dried fruit- for all of the urchins, so what did it matter if they were witches?

They  _ were _ strange though.

They had no riches nor did they seem to seek gold. They did their business quickly and left, quiet as could be. They often walked stooped, ducking beneath doorways that were well above their heads. They wore plain cloaks, but colorful clothes, armor even, peaked from beneath. But there was more.

It was the cusp of winter, wet and cold, when it happened. He had grown tall, lanky and awkward, barely a child, but not yet a full man. Through bad luck and ill events, he ended up in the middle of a tavern brawl. He escaped with his life, but barely. Badly beaten, he only just made it to his hidey hole before collapsing. One of his arms was broken- twisted and wrenched wrongways. Unusable. For him, it was as much a death sentence as a knife to the throat, but slower.

He hid there alone for three days before she found him. The tall, plain woman who had spoken to him that first time. She always found him.

The break was messy, and he was burning with fever when she settled beside him.

"What a mess you've made of yourself," she said. "This will be very uncomfortable for a moment, but it will pass. Hang on."

With that, she seized his arm, and healing flowed into him.

For a moment, he burned, hotter than the fever, hotter than a flame. He grasped her arm with his free hand as the feeling subsided. His injured arm still ached, but in a manageable way, and the fever was gone. After days of haziness, he could think, see, and feel again.

And what he felt was fur.

He looked down at his hand, where he gripped the woman's arm. It looked smooth, human, or perhaps elvish. But he could  _ feel _ short, soft fur. Not like a cat's fur or a horse's. Something in between and entirely different.

He looked up. The woman raised an eyebrow. He released her arm, pulling his hand back and looking away.

She wrapped his hurt arm in her gentle but no-nonsense way. Told him to try not to use it much for a few days. Then she left.

He never forgot.

Years passed. Eventually, he didn't rely on the bread so much. He grew, gaining skills of his own. But she still checked up on him, healed him or others he pointed her toward. And she never changed, not the slightest.

Until.

It was a cold morning in early spring. The thaw was coming, as slowly as it ever did. He had seen the woman arrive in town and begin to carry out her business. He didn't flock to her like a child. He had his own business to tend to. And if he did his business near the northern fountain where he was easy to find, what of it?

At last, she approached. She handed him a small slice of bread, as was tradition, and settled on the fountain's edge beside him. Around them, people washed clothes and drew water and scolded children. The two of them sat, companionably silent.

"I need you to spread a message for me," she said finally. "To the little ones of the streets."

His ears perked slightly. This was new.

"I'm… not going to be around anymore," she said. Her eyes stayed on the scene around them, distant and unflinching.

"What do you mean?" He said, taken aback. There were few consistent, unshakable things in his world. She was one of them.

"Just what I say," she replied. "There's something I need to do. It's important. And it isn't going to get done by staying here. My family will still bring bread when they can-"

"I don't need your bread," he spat with as much venom as he could muster. And it was true. He hadn't needed her or her bread to survive for a long time.

So why did the thought of her leaving make him panic?

"I know," she said. "I wanted to tell you anyway."

"Why?" He said. "I'm not anything to you. Nor you to me."

She turned to look at him, gaze level and clear as ever.

"Do you believe in destiny?" She asked.

"No," he said sullenly, looking away. He felt like being a bit difficult, though he had honestly never given destiny half a thought.

"I do," she said. "I believe that every person has a role and a purpose. And sometimes, I get a little nudge about it."

"A nudge?" He asked. "Does your nudge tell where  _ I'm _ supposed to go next? You aren't the only one who wants to get out of this place, you know."

_ You could take me with you,  _ he thought wildly.  _ Instead of leaving me here alone. _

"That isn't how it works, in my experience," she said. "I have no idea what role you have to play. I just know you have one."

"Maybe I'll just start a ruckus here in town," he said, crossing his arms. "Rob and murder and start fires and such. Maybe that's my destiny."

"Perhaps," she said, and curse her, there was a smile in her voice. "But anyone who steps in water makes ripples, whether they move gently or violently. And those ripples do as the Mother wills. I think, however you choose to tread, your ripples will go far."

The idea rested on him a moment, settling over the turbulent emotions in his chest. The thought of ripples, moving out and away. Chains of events caused by things he would do. Moving beyond him.

Changing the world.

"I have to go," she said. She stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Goodbye, Lucien."

He looked up, startled. She knew his name.

His throat locked up tight, so he nodded briefly rather than speak. She returned the gesture, and walked away.

He watched as she met her daughter at their cart and left through the north gate. As they disappeared into the mist, she looked back, just once.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but for a moment, he  _ swore _ her form shifted. Tall, more like a small giant than person. Long ears, pale, strange feyish features. A gentle grin.

Then she was gone.

In the weeks that followed, her family came with bread, as she said they would. Until they didn't. Their visits dwindled, then ended.

It didn't matter. By then, Lucien had more important things to do than worry about some mysterious forest hermits. After all, he had a destiny to find.

And ripples to make.


End file.
